Sunday, June 24, 2007

The "ancient" Times of India…is it really our time??

Just as I was going thru ToI (Times of India) on the net, I thought of reading some new articles by our own columnists. Since I had seen an interview of Bachi Karkaria on the TV yesterday, I felt like taking a peek into her column. “Sex? Don’t toy with it” was the latest pick of Bachi and, I was tempted to read thru it completely.

Having read this article and the news on which it was based, compelled me to think, if we still are a country of fools and ignorant who need to be tutored in each aspect of life- from bedroom to bathroom!

Don’t we know what is good for us? At least, being an adult and having received so much of gyan for nearly a quarter of a century (on an average, an Indian studies till the age of 25), we can take a stand on the products we want to use in our daily life. How can a minister holding portfolio of some completely unrelated sector, plea to the government and decide that we as a country do not want to use “such” products?Did he think he was some self appointed moral policeman of India, or was this some act of defiance to the adoption of a “foreign concept”?I wonder what’s going to be the fate of this country which doesn’t even allow its citizen to take a call on their own needs.I would have been happy, had the minister opposed the condoms by Hindustan Latex, as anti environmental (considering disposal of latex as difficult), but the statement that “condoms are for population control and not for pleasure” exhibits the shallowness of his thinking capacity.There’s no gainsaying the primal purpose of condoms, but can we ignore its other benefits like safety from AIDS and the other diseases of its ilk. And is there any harm if people derive pleasure out of something which is designed for “population control”? Well, I don’t see anything wrong in it, morally or otherwise.

Mr. Minister seems to have ignored such things. In this ever evolving era, where the definition of culture has apparently blurred, can we still confine ourselves to the facade of “Indian” culture?

I mean, “condom and sex” are no more a topic of taboo in our coevals.

Given the kind of exposure we have now days, I wouldn’t be shocked if kids would have the know-how of condom. The issue is not emulating the west in their sense of pleasure, but to leave it to the discretion of common man, whether she/he wants to endorse a specific use of the condom. I am sure that our much bothered “Palisader of Indian culture” Mr. Minister wouldn’t have heard the news about female condoms “Confidom” being introduced in India, by Hindustan Latex. He definitely would have opposed it by mouthing things like “population control is the right of men and not women” or various other slogans of the same sort. The female condom was welcomed by the women group. It not only gave them the power to prevent unwanted pregnancy but also rendered them with the choice of doing so, and jettisoning the dependencies on their better half.

It feels very sad to know that sex education has still not percolated even to the wealthy band of Indian population. At least, Mr. Minister seems to be leaving that impression upon me.

Leaving our country in the hands of such powerful imbeciles, could do little wonder to us. Pardon me for using such a harsh parlance, but I am genuinely keeping my fingers crossed for the fear of coming across anything, close to such a condemned concern as that of our Mr. Minister!